Boogity, Boogity, Boogity.. This post is hotter than a hot lap in Daytona.
This weekend the NASCAR Busch series hosted its 3rd race in Mexico City, with the running of the Telcel Motorola 200. Clearly NASCAR is trying to appeal to a giant Hispanic fan base of more than 20 million people -- nothing wrong with that.
Only the targeted fan base, despite what NASCAR wants you to believe, is not in Mexico it's actually here in America. Think about it, the fastest growing demographic in the USA is the Hispanic population. All but 3 of the sponsors in this race were American companies who do almost all of their business here in America. The broadcast this weekend was televised in Spanish on ESPN's primary broadcast channel in high definition, while its English version was relegated to their secondary channel ESPN2.
Now I am not opposed to appealing to a broader demographic. I speak Spanish myself and I'm of Hispanic descent, but you don't just shun your primary fan base to some other secondary channel to make way for the latest flavor of the week. Perhaps if this was baseball or soccer it would make more sense, at least these sports have established themselves in these other countries, but NASCAR is a sport that's often billed as the good ol southern boys sport - It's American as apple pie.
So, is this appropriate? At what point do you change your established ways, your values, to accommodate a prospective client or customer? If NASCAR is trying to appeal to the Hispanic markets, why don't they broadcast the entire season in both Spanish and English? At least this would make sense and it would communicate their intentions to invite a Hispanic following for the sport. However, trying to switch your broadcast from English to Spanish for one race isn't attracting a new fan base; it's being phony and deceptive to its own roots.
What next? A Japanese broadcast from the Fuji International Speedway?
What do I know, I'm just a spanish speaking mortgage broker trying to watch every race that I can.
Comments(13)